The electoral message

Is it anti-incumbency ? Widening partisanship ? Throw the bums out ?

The buzz seems to be anti-incumbency. Surely there is disgust with the paralysis in Congress, and especially the Senate, and that translates into a lot of anti-incumbent feeling. But I believe it's more specific. It's wanting to get rid of the incumbents who put special interests or political expediency above principles or who paralyze senate action.

Look at the two biggest defeats of solid senate incumbents: Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln.

Specter, with a long reputation of doing what was politically expedient, while talking about being principled, switched parties when it became obvious that he couldn't win re-election as a Republican. So the Democrats didn't want him either -- who really trusts a turncoat, even if he turns toward you? Sure, Specter got tepid official support from Democratic leaders. I assume that they had promised to support him in return for his switching parties, so it was obligatory. I equally well assume that they are delighted to have Joe Sestak instead.

And then there's Blanche Lincoln -- one of the last Democratic holdouts on health care reform for whom they had to drop the public option plan. Lincoln has long been considered not so much a conservative Dem as a corporatist because of her loyalty to the bank and business interests. Her attempt to balance that by an election year lurch to the populist front with an amendment to regulate derivative funds didn't fool anyone. Somehow, the legislation never got brought up for a vote, and then it was quietly dropped the day after the election. Sounds like a stunt to me.

Uber-blogger Jane Hamsher agrees. Writing about Lincoln's quasi-defeat, she said this about the mood of the electorate:

The message being sent by the public could not be clearer. It's not so much an anti-incumbent sentiment as it is anti-Senate. People are tired of their arrogance, their sense of personal privilege, the way they completely dismiss the House and demand they swallow whatever Joe Lieberman wants. Over and over again, the Senate plays a game of "rotating villains" then manipulates their rules so that their big business contributors always win. People aren't stupid. They understand what's happening.

This is what the voters are saying NO to. It explains why the Republicans are choosing more conservative candidates and the Democrats more liberal ones. They want to send people to Congress who will stand up for their interests and not play these political games that keep the status quo.

Blogger Cenk Uygur also argues that progressives won big: that is, the more progressive candidate won in almost every race (an argument I made here two days ago). Uygur lists Sestak over Specter, Critz over Burns for Murtha's old seat, Halter forcing Lincoln to a run-off which he is predicted to win, and -- intriguingly he includes Rand Paul, who he says is more likely to agree with progressives on some issues than the establishment conservative candidate.

At least Paul won't be a rubber stamp for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had made a big show of support for Paul's opponent, the establishment candidate.

I would add one more progressive win: the Democratic winner in the KY senate race to face Paul is the more liberal Attorney General, Jack Conway, who eked out a narrow margin over the Lt. Governor.

So there you have it. Anti-incumbent, but more specifically, incumbents who serve special interests over peoples' interest and who put politics over principle. Voters want to send people to Washington who will vote for the interests of those who elected them, not the special interests who give them huge sums of money to sway their votes.

I'm 100% for that.

Ralph

Fallout from the Rekers scandal

The sensational rentboy scandal exposing the hypocrisy of the anti-gay Dr. George Rekers has about played itself out as news, and its bookend twin story of the heterosexual affair of abstinence-only sex education champion and family values Congressman Mark Souter takes its place.

But there is a larger issue that is emerging in the Rekers fallout: What about his "expert testimony" that has been part of court cases, one of which (the Florida anti-gay adoption law) is still pending an appeal decision? Does the Attorney General now have an obligation to file an amendment to his appeal withdrawing Rekers' testimony?

It probably makes no difference, because the trial judge already discredited Rekers' testimony, saying it promoted Rekers' ideology rather than valid science. But it remains part of the record, just as Charles Socarides' affidavit remains forever part of the sealed documents in the Colorado Amendment 2 case that the Supreme Court overturned, saying that it could only have been motivated by "animus" toward homosexuals.

This is a serious issue that courts need to look at. When the state's prosecutors use $120,000 of taxpayer money to hire expert witnesses, there should be some standards for what makes an expert. When I testified as the plaintiff's expert witness in the case brought to overturn Louisiana's "crimes against nature" laws back in the late 90s, the State's only defense expert should not have been accepted on the stand as an expert, and in fact the plaintiff's attorney did challenge it.

Richard Cohen was the state's only "expert witness." Cohen portrays his work as an "international healing ministry" that has helped "hundreds and hundreds" of gay men "accept Jesus and give up their homosexual life style." It was established in court that Cohen has only a masters degree in counseling (something that is pretty easy to get) and was not licensed to practice in any state. (After you have the degree, to get licensed you actually have to do a lot of clinical work under supervision.) He refused to give his office address, because he practices out of his home and he feared retributive harassment.

There was nothing scientific about his testimony. He could only say, with dramatic gestures, that he had helped "hundreds and hundreds," but that he didn't have time to keep records or to do follow up studies to see if his healing ministry had long-term results. Instead, he simply insisted that, of those who "stuck with the program, 100% were healed." How neat. Those who quit the program are dropped from the statistics, allowing for the 100% success. It was a ludicrous performance, including a claque of groupies who applauded him when he finished. Even NARTH distanced itself from Cohen a few years ago, saying he was a little extreme in his claims.

Cohen got his come-uppance from Rachel Madow a few months back when she had him on her show to talk about his latest book. She is so smart (a former Rhodes Scholar at Oxford) and was well-prepared to skewer him with his own words. It was one of his associates who went to Uganda to speak at a conference about healing homosexuality, which was followed shortly by the law introduced into their parliament that would have included a death penalty for some homosexual acts and criminal charges against relatives and friends of gays who fail to report them. Cohen tried to distance himself from the law, but Rachel wouldn't let him off the hook of bearing some responsibility for promoting ideology disguised as 'science,' that lawmakers then use as rationalization for their draconian legislation (which at this point has reportedly been dealt a serious blow by the report of a study commission requested by the president, by the way.)

Should there be some standards that must be met to have the court accept testimony as expert? I suppose courts are set up to let the adversarial process -- challenge and counter-argument -- sort it out. Of course, that means that often it is the un-expert jurors or a single judge who ultimately "decides" which of competing "expert witnesses" to believe and thus to influence a decision. Does the court have some responsibility for determining what is expert testimony? Or is it "whatever the lawyers can get away with?"

I acknowledge that my wish to have the court discredit Cohen perhaps stems in part from my own feelings about Cohen's being paid rather well by taxpayer money for his theatrical performance, while I -- testifying for the other side with credentials that did qualify me as "expert" (Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University, author of articles on homosexuality in peer-reviewed journals) -- got paid nothing but my travel expenses by the not-well-funded private citizen plaintiffs.

Long rambling account -- bottom line: there are a lot of bogus "experts" out there peddling their ideology as "science," using scientific-sounding, bogus "studies" that fool the uninformed and scientifically naive jurors and the politically motivated, or ideologically-motivated legislators.

Ralph

Super Tuesday

First reaction to the election results today:
A win for the Democrats.
That's my take on it.

1. Arlen Specter was soundly defeated by Joe Sestak 53% to 47%. Sure, Specter was running in the Democratic primary, and he's been on the team since he defected. And Obama made a campaign stop for him -- but he didn't go back for the end game, and his support seemed tepid. My guess is that it was a promise from back when Specter crossed the aisle.

Personally, I'd much rather have Sestak. So it feels like a win for our team -- a real Democrat -- if he can win the general election.

2. The Democrat Mark Critz won the special election to fill John Murtha's seat, defeating Republican Tea Party supporter Tim Burns. They were neck and neck in the latest polls, so the victory shows momentum coming into the race.

3. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a runoff with her Democratic challenger in Arkansas, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, a former member of the Clinton administration. Lincoln had particularly angered the more liberal Democrats because of her opposition to the health reform bill.

In all three of these closely watched elections, the more liberal person won; or, in the case of Arkansas, the more liberal challenger forced the center-right incumbant into a run-off.

4. And then of course Rand Paul won big in the Republican primary in Kentucky -- but that could be good news for the Dems on November. How is this good for the Dems? Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders had endorsed his opponent, so it was a slap at them. A Tea Party darling, Paul is way to the right of his opponent. If he wins in Nov., we're probably no worse off than with the other guy. And, maybe he'll be too extreme for the middle and they'll vote for the Dem in November.

That's my midnight take on it.

Ralph

The politics of spin

Newt Gingrich is bloviating again -- as only Newt can do -- saying that Kagan's nomination should be withdrawn. She's unqualified, he says, because of her anti-military stance when she was Dean at Harvard Law School.

Wouldn't you think that what we need most on the Supreme Court are justices who are capable of calmly weighing the balance between two competing principles, both of which are held to be right? Isn't that what most cases that reach the high court are all about?

That is exactly what impressed Wasington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. about Elena Kagan several years back when she was Dean of Harvard Law School and made the decision to limit the military recruiters on campus because of their discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Yesterday the AJC reprinted Dionne’s column from the Washington Post about Kagan and the military recruiting controversy. He says he had a conversation with her back then, and it was in fact her balanced way of discussing her position that would be the best argument FOR her being confirmed to the Supreme Court. Although he personally came to a different conclusion, he admired the thoughtful way she came to her conclusion.

Dionne’s position was that the military needs the liberalizing influence of educated recruits, so their discriminating against gays should be fought in other arenas and allow them to recruit on college campuses for those who can influence the military from within.

Her position was that, in a free and democratic society, the military should be able to recruit on campuses, but at the same time university officials have an obligation to maintain policies that protect groups that are part of their student population from discrimination. So you have a conflict between two principles. At Harvard Law, she struck the balance by allowing recruiters access through a student veterans group, but not through the main career office.

Dionne said that her comfort in having a calm and thoughtful discussion with him about the issue — they agreed on the conflicting principles but came to different conclusions about the remedy — was exactly what we need on the court.

Hopefully, she will be able to convince the senators of the same, although Dionne said these hearings hardly allow one to be candid and therefore wind up being rituals of non-substance, which is probably the prudent way to go. He coins a phrase: “vacuity in pursuit of confirmation is no vice.”

Let's hope Kagan can somehow get across to the senators this quality that impressed Dionne. What a waste, spending all that time trying to score political spin instead of having a reasoned discussion of issues in our highest deliberative body.

Ralph

The awkward question

Of course it is inevitable that questions will be raised about the sexual orientation of President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. The Republicans want any excuse to derail it, and they know full well that the media would cooperate by creating a circus around the issue.

The fact is that the White House felt the need to respond to the question by saying that Elena Kagan had volunteered the information that she is not gay. See how forthcoming she is? I think we can assume that Obama himself couldn't care less -- but he knows that the other side would use it as a political smear and it could complicate the confirmation process.

But isn't it time for the answer to be: So what if she is lesbian?

I was going to just ignore the whole issue, thinking that was the best response -- until this morning, when something I read prompted me to think about the bigger implication.

I think most Americans are ready to accept that it should be a non-issue whether she is straight or gay. But it apparently is an issue that we feel the need for an explanation for why a 50 year old woman has never married -- because we are so immersed in a culture that says it is the norm, we assume there is something wrong if she hasn't. As Janet Reno said in a similar awkward moment about rumors that she was lesbian: She denied it but then, to explain her unmarried status, said: "I'm just an awkward old maid." So, either she's gay or she's a failed heterosexual woman.

Right? Or could it simply be that she has other priorities? Even among us psychoanalysts who revere individual autonomy and self-determination, and even among us gay activists who revere freedom to be who you are -- both groups tend to act as though we think being in a committed relationship is somehow just a little bit healthier than being a lone wolf. Is there something missing in a woman who chooses not to become a mother?

So what's that all about? We should ponder, not Kagan's sexuality, but our own assumptions about relationships and parenthood.

Ralph

Integrity deficit

I don't for a nanosecond feel sorry for John McCain. He brought it on himself by jettisoning his brand "Maverick" and the patina of integrity that he had so carefully constructed for decades.

It began during the 2008 presidential campaign (or sooner, for those watching closely and knowing about his post-Viet Nam opportunism). At one time, some of us saw him as the Republican we would least object to having as president. That was before I knew much about him or paid attention during the campaign as he lurched from one position to another with dizzying, denying aplomb.

But his campaign for re-election in Arizona puts him in a whole new league of absurd chameleonism. Start with his denial a couple of weeks ago that he had ever thought of himself as a maverick -- despite the unofficial slogan of the 2008 pairing with Palin as "a team of mavericks." And I saw him with my own eyes in a tv interview, in response to a question about rumors that there he and Palin didn't always agree -- he said, "Look, when you have two mavericks running together . . . "

Now his campaign manager and a deputy manager have quit in the wake of his recent ad campaign. Arch-conservative commentator Michelle Malkin wrote in the National Review," I need a Dramamine to cover Sen. John McCain's reelection bid. With his desperate lurch to the right, he's inducing more motion sickness than a Disneyland teacup.” She's supporting his more conservative Republican opponent.

Still, he enjoys a comfortable lead over his Republican primary opponent and the Democratic challenger Rodney Glassman. Stay tuned.

Ralph

Awakenings

There was a 1990 movie, "Awakenings," about a hospital ward full patients who have been comatose for decades as the result of an epidemic of encephalitis. Robin Williams (in a non-comic role) played the doctor who discovered a medicinal cure, and overnight the patients "woke up." It turned out that the effect was short-lived, but let's hope that part of the analogy doesn't hold up.

Laura Bush seems to be having her "awakening" moment. She's been pretty much out of the limelight for 16 months, until last week when she began her book promotion round of interviews.

I got the first hint of Laura's awakening in an early book review by Janet Maslin. She was struck by the contrast between the easy-going young woman with a bit of a wild side and opinions of her own -- and then the sudden metamorphosis into the frozen smile of the ultra-conforming first lady she became. Laura says it was a caricature created by the press, but it wouldn't be surprising if she did become frozen, given the political need to "control the message." Michelle Obama seems to have kept her personality and her opinions intact as she moved into the goldfish bowl, however.

What seems to be hinted at though is that Laura Bush, in her own right, is a lot more liberal than her husband and certainly than he was as president. And now we're finding out just how true that is.

Not only is the frozen smile gone and the dead eyes now have light in them, but Laura has in recent days:

1. Declared her belief that gay marriage will eventually come and she is ok with that.

2. She has a more liberal position on abortion.

3. And today, on Fox News, she said she thinks Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan is "great." She put it in the context of having more women on the court, but still -- it's hardly the party line.

4. There was an exchange about Karl Rove that hinted at more that was unsaid. Chris Wallace asked her about Rove's statement in his book that he never knew where he stood with Laura. She laughed, said she liked Karl but there was some tension between them. She finally explained it as: "I think he knew I would tell George what I thought."

This can't mean anything other than that she and Rove disagreed at times and that Rove knew that she had a mind of her own and would "tell Georgie what I thought." Obviously, Karl didn't like that. He wanted to control the message.

I do not watch FoxNews, but I did watch a replay of the interview online. I found Laura seeming more like a real person -- and a more likeable person.

Maybe the notorious, hushed-up wildness of the Bush twins, Barbara and Jenna, was an expression of the real Laura Bush; and maybe she can now release her inner wild child.

Ralph